Miss Rachel

“ The lady and the child bade good-bye to Rachel, and kissed her; and when they met again, an hour afterwards, the child gave Rachel a flower.
Like the incense of a breeze that has been wandering among sweet-smelling plants; like the soft plash of water on a drowsy day; like the singing of birds, are such small circumstances as these. Thank God for them!
And what had Ruth and Charley been doing? Dreaming--nothing more--walking almost in silence among the busy eager bustling crowd, standing before works of beauty, and enjoying. Everything was beautiful in their eyes. ”

“ Rachel! I gafe you the gold watch; and that bill came to thirty-three pounds. I gif you everything, and when I tell you not to run after a bad young feller, you say I nefer loaf you. Rachel, you are cruel; you make your father’s heart bleed; you stab me here”—he pointed with his fat forefinger to the middle of his waistcoat—“you stab me here”—he placed his finger on his forehead. “You show no loaf, no consideration. You make me most unhappy. You’re a naughty girl!” ”

“ Rachel stands mutely watching all such demonstrations, her pale face rigid with some emotion, and her eyes brilliant and hard. She is not a child one would dare take liberties with. No one ever pets her. ”

“ Rachel's face lighted up in quick response. "When I am gone," her mother went on, "don't let your father feel that the theatre of his actions has fallen—take my place, surround him with love and sympathy."
"I will, indeed I will," said Rachel.
"What a man needs," said Lady Gore, "is some one to believe in him."
"My father will never be in want of that," said Rachel, with heartfelt conviction. "Mother," she added, "I never will forget what I am saying now, and you may believe it and you may be happy about it. I won't leave my father; he shall come first, I promise, whatever happens." ”

“ What ridiculous language you do use, Rachel! Well, I’m no prophet, but I see very distinctly what is going to happen. This little brown baby will be living here night and day. You’re not happy unless some child is trailing along in your rear.
Rachel (Mischievously) : Now, Ma dear, whose a hypocrite? What? I suppose you don’t like children! I can tell you one thing, though, it won’t be my fault if he isn’t here night and day. Oh, I wish he were all mine, every bit of him! Ma dear, do you suppose that “she woman” he calls mother would let him come up here until it is time for him to go to bed? ”

“ If I were a man, I should be in love with Rachel.
Her sensitiveness through every available channel makes her of no use to general society. Blundering people tread on her; malicious ones tear her to pieces. Rachel ought to be caged, and only approached by clever people who have brains enough to appreciate her. I should like to be her keeper. But her organization is too closely allied to that of genius to be happy, unless with certain environments which it is too good to believe will ever surround her. She is so clever that she is perfectly helpless. ”

“ But she was something apart and by herself, and stamped herself on one's mind as Rachel did in Camille or Phèdre. It was true genius, and no imitation, that made both of them what they were. But she actually had the physical beauty which Rachel only compelled you to think she had by the force of her genius and consummate dramatic skill, while she was on the scene before you. ”

“ One hot evening, about midsummer, somewhat earlier than was usual with her, Rachel took a candle and ascended the ladder which served as stairs to lead to the open chamber or garret which contained her humble bed. A short time after midnight, her mother, being accidentally awake, and talking with her father, heard her, as she expressed, 'gabbling to herself in a dream.' She called aloud to her daughter, but received no answer; but her talk, in a low tone of voice, continued as before. The mother now awoke her husband, and lighting a candle, they ascended together to Rachel's apartment. ”

“ The girl had deliberately stood watching that little scene with a curious smile in her eyes, a semi-cynical gaze at the lingering fondness of voice and touch. There was no envy in her face, only a sort of good-natured disbelief. Her cousin Clara always averred that Rachel was too masculine in spirit to ever understand the little tendernesses that burnish other women's lives. ”

“ Rachel had crept to the extreme end of the skiff and when the water rose to the edge it often dashed across her knees. Her head was flung back, but for all that, she saw nothing. She was holding her emotions well in leash and the effort drew from her now and then a sigh. Where the fingers of one hand met the back of the other, for she had them tight clasped, there were white marks on the flesh. She sat before him with the impassive countenance of an image, though internally she was consumed with flames. ”

“ And as on a summer's day to people sitting in a shaded room, the world beyond shut out, the opening of a door into the sunshine may reveal a sudden vista of light, of flowers shining in the sun, so to the two people who were awaiting Rachel's arrival she brought a sudden vision of youth, brightness, colour, hope, as she came swiftly in, smiling and confident, with the face and expression of one who had never come into the presence of either of these two companions without seeing her gladness reflected in the light of welcome that shone in their eyes. ”

“ I saw that Rachel was blind, and it touched me deeply, at that time and always afterwards, to witness their tender thoughtfulness for the dear girl's calamity. Not, I truly believe, that it is a calamity to her. She has been so wisely trained, and has such strong inherent gratitude for the love which is shed upon her, for the blessings by which she is surrounded, that a repining thought never enters her mind. ”

“ Rachel felt, in the glow of the occasion, that, all her days, there had been active constant war-to-the-knife in the Portland Place house.
"She's been the curse of my life," he said bitterly. "Always keeping me down, making me unable to do myself justice. Why should she hate me so?"
"She hates us," cried Rachel, "because we're both determined to be free. We wouldn't have our lives ruled for us. She wants everyone to be under her in everything." ”

“ I loved Rachel. We've only met so little—really only that once in my rooms—that you can't grudge us that. We had things—heaps of things—in common long before we knew one another. It wasn't like any ordinary two people meeting, and I knew so well that she could make all the difference to my life that I took the chance of knowing her even though she wasn't ever going to belong to me. I don't think I ever really believed that I'd be the man. ”

“ But she waved them aside.
"Thou hast the marks of hard usage upon thee," she said; "thou hast slaved for us since midday, and now the night is far spent. Thine eyes are heavy for sleep, thy face is weary. And before thee is a task which will require thy keenest wit, thy steadiest hand. Thou owest it to Rachel and to thyself to go forth with the eye of a hawk and the strength of a young lion." ”

“ His affections were so warm, so frankly bestowed; yet that gracious, tender manner of his, even when compared with the bluntness of the men around him, never made him seem effeminate.
Rachel, thinking of his words, wondered if he had a sweetheart somewhere, that made him think of a possible wife or children longingly—and if so, how that girl must love him!
So, despite her semi-warlike attitude, and her delight in thwarting him, she had appreciation enough of his personality to understand how possible it was for him to be loved deeply. ”

“ Rachel had only seen her in the Portland Place rooms, with the china dragons, the gold ornaments, the red lacquer bed, the blazing wall-paper. It had seemed then that she must have those things around her, that she needed the colour and extravagance to support her flaming passion for life, so curbed and shackled by disease.
Their absence made her older, feebler, more human, but also grander and more impressive. Rachel had always feared her, but despised herself for her fear ”

“ Yet, gay, and debonnair, and happy as he looked, I pitied him a little, going past to find Rachel. A little, not a great deal, for I judged him (wrongly, as it afterwards proved) to be one who would love lightly, and be easily consoled by a world whose darling he must be.
I saw their meeting, and John's aërial palace crumbled away into dust. There was no mistaking Rachel's face, the glow that transfigured it when she turned by chance and saw the figure advancing towards her. She sprang to meet him with hands extended, gown tucked aside as it was, and visibly flying feet ”

“ Now she seemed to be the one person whom Rachel wished to know. Another instance of Rachel's unexpectedness. When Lizzie came he was still more astonished. This tidy, trim little woman looked as though she ought always to have a typewriter by her side; her sharp eyes were always restlessly discovering things that were out of order. Roddy found himself fingering his tie and patting his hair when she was with him—not, he would have supposed, the sort of woman for whom Rachel would have cared. ”

“ And now, Rachel, you must just confide in me and make me your friend. Oh, nonsense! Were you not my wife’s friend? and don’t I remember you a bit of a bonny lass, as young, quite as young as Rupert here? I have got two young daughters of my own, and don’t you suppose I feel for a woman who is the mother of girls? You tell me your whole story, Rachel. How is it that you, who have married a Lovel of Avonsyde, should be practically shut away from the house and unrecognized by the family? When I met you last in Melbourne you looked free enough from cares, and your father was fairly well off. ”

“ I know that it is impertinent of me, but, as I have said, I think I know Rachel differently from anyone else in the world. She is strange—curiously ignorant of life in many ways, curiously wise in others. Her simplicity—the things that she takes on trust—there is no end to it. ”

“ I must not speak to little Rachel Lovel.”
“She knows that,” said Phil in a sorrowful voice; for the lady’s whiteness and agitation and distress filled him with the keenest sympathy. “Rachel knows that you and she may not speak, but let her look at you. Do! She will be so good; she will not break her word to you for the world.” ”

“ Scarcely cognizant of what she did, Rachel, like a feminine Crusoe, hovered over this bit of evidence on the sand. Like the legendary hero her consciousness of being alone was destroyed, but with different effect, for instead of an expression of surprise not unmixed with fear, her look was one of suspicious misery.
"That letter was never from his mother," flashed through her mind. "Old ladies don't make D's that way, so big and round,—but small and trembly. No, whoever she is, she's young. ”

“ She laughs shyly and jumping up, begins to hum. She opens the window at the rear of the room and then commences to thread the sewing-machine. She hums happily the whole time. A light rapping is heard at the outer door. Rachel listens. It stops, and begins again. There is something insistent, and yet hopeless in the sound. Rachel looking puzzled, goes out into the vestibule.... The door closes. Rachel, a black woman, poorly dressed, and a little ugly, black child come in. There is the stoniness of despair in the woman’s face. ”

“ It was such a night of stars as Rachel had never seen, so dense an army that all earth was conscious of them; the sky was sheeted silver, here fading into their clouded tracery, there, at fairy points drawing the dark woods and fields up to its splendour with lines of fire. The world throbbed with stars, was restless under the glory of them—God walked in all gardens that night.
At first Nita Raseley, Monty Carfax, Rachel and Roddy went together, then, turning up a little path into the little wood that rose above the garden, Rachel and Roddy were alone. ”

“ For this Rachel-and-Leah is marriage, and Laban their father
Circumstance, chance, the world, our uncle and hard taskmaster.
Rachel we found as we fled from the daughters of Heth by the desert;
Rachel we met at the well; we came, we saw, we kissed her;
Rachel we serve-for, long years,—that seem a few days only,
E'en for the love we have to her,—and win her at last of Laban.
Is it not Rachel we take in our joy from the hand of her father?
Is it not Rachel we lead in the mystical veil from the altar!
Rachel we dream-of at night: in the morning, behold, it is Leah. ”

“ It was when Rachel was seventeen that Lady Gore became helpless and dependent, and the girl suddenly found that their positions were in some ways reversed; it was she who had to take care of her mother, to inculcate prudence upon her, to minister incessantly to her daily wants; there was added to the daughter's love the yearning care that a loving woman feels for a helpless charge, and there was hardly room for anything else in her life. Rachel, fortunately for herself and for others, had no startling originality; no burning desire, arrived at womanhood, to strike out a path for herself. ”

“ If she had not known this, the whole place would have seemed to Rachel as though blossoming by magic in the heart of a forest growing in mid-air. She could scarcely believe it was not the work of some magician.
By the time they reached the uppermost terrace, on a level with the city wall, she was not only breathless, but struck dumb by the beauty and wonder of everything round her.
Mighty cedar trees spread their layers of branches between her and the burning blue sky. The air was perfumed with the scent from groves of lemon trees. Fountains tossed their sparkling drops high into the sunshine. ”